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Mom’s on this health craze so we are going through a wide range of salads at the moment. This salad is simple and nom.

Toast some whole almonds in a pan and then drizzle with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. Once a bubbly thick caramel, make sure all the almonds are covered, pull aside and let cool. In the meantime, prepare a salad bowl full of kale and carrots, grated if you’re a normal person, sliced if you’re my mom! With the kale and carrot in a bowel, chop up the almonds in to fine toasty-crunchy-sweet bits and throw on top of the salad. Finally grab 2-3 apples and chop into small cubes and pop on top of the salad. Serve with a balsamic dressing made with walnut oil.

With the salad we had swedish meatballs made from a pork-veal combo (made sure to get good quality pork and veal mince from a nice butchers. Serve meatballs with lingonberry jelly and horseradish cream. Om nom nom.

A German Dinner

This was genuinely eaten so quickly I couldn’t snap a proper picture of it.

Sweat 2-3 chopped onions in a little bit of butter until browning and then add in 300-400grams of chopped bacon (or if you can get your hands on it some delicious smoked German speck!). Then add 500g of chopped button mushrooms and cook until soft and brown and there is a lovely juice sweating out of it all. Add 750g of German spatzle (funny shaped noodles) and stir well into meat, mushrooms and onion. Add 250ml of creme fraiche (half fat stuff if you feel a little guilty) and 75g of cheddar or emmental grated. Stir well and bung it all into a casserole dish. Top off again with some cheddar or emmental. Serve hot with a salad.

This is like one of the most delicious nom noms ever. The great panda, that is my girlfriend, specialises in german baked goods and so I have stolen the recipe from her.

1 cube of fresh yeast (or 3g of dried yeast)

1 tablespoon of sugar

5 tablespoons of milk, warmed

a little salt and flour

—-

500g plain flour

80g butter, ideally unsalted

80g sugar

250ml milk

a handful of sultanas

the rind of half a lemon

1 egg

—-

an egg yolk

First, mix what is called a ‘Vorteig’ in German (pre-dough)by mixing the 5 tablespoons of warm milk (but not too hot so as not to kill the yeast bacteria), the broken up cube of fresh yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and a little bit of flour in a jug. Let that rest for approximately 10 minutes. Sieve the rest of the flour into a large bowl and mix in the sugar, butter, milk, eg and lemon rind plus the Vorteig – it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get dirty!

Knead the mix thoroughly till it’s one big smooth lump of dough and doesn’t stick to the bowl anymore. Cover with a towel and place at a warm but not too hot spot and let it rise for about 40 minutes or till it has doubled its mass.

Then, mix in the sultanas with the dough so that they are evenly distributed.

Divide the dough into three equally sized pieces and form them into strings and start braiding (‘Zopf’ in German means braid)! Spread the egg yolk over the Hefezopf and sprinkle some brown sugar on top – the egg yolk will make it all shiny while the brown sugar adds some extra nom to it.

Put in the oven at 180 degrees for about 25 minutes!

Best served hot with some butter and jam for breakfast! Ta da, delicious German Hefezopf nom!